Crimes of the Future (18)
Directed by David Cronenberg
 

FILMMAKER David Cronenberg returns to his technology and body-horror roots as he explores familiar themes in this dystopian sci-fi drama about human evolution.

First penned in 1998-99, the film opens with a woman killing her young son after finding him munching on a plastic bin. His bizarre eating habit is just the tip of an evolving iceberg, as people grow new organs inside them and slowly move on from consuming ordinary food to plastics — though there is a mysterious group aiming to stop them.

The futuristic drama then follows celebrity performance artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and his creative partner Caprice (Lea Seydoux) as he publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his insides in avant-garde shows.

His work is closely followed by Timlin (a wasted Kristen Stewart) and her boss (Don McKellar) from the National Organ Registry, a secret government organisation where they register every new organ growth.

In a move to deliver shock-and-awe performances, Tenser allows himself to be cut open by Caprice and have his organs removed in front of a paying public.

As someone points out, “surgery is the new sex” as the pair appear to be turned on by being sliced and diced; particularly in Tenser's weird walnut-shaped and womb-like bed suspended in mid-air, which administers to his every need, taking all his physical pain away.

In typical Cronenberg style, the drama becomes ever more explicit and deeply disturbing as it progresses and the characters transform; accentuated by macabre and bloody visuals. It also contains gratuitous female full-frontal nudity, which adds little to the narrative.

It is anchored by a compelling yet perturbing performance by Mortensen alongside Seydoux in this, his fourth Cronenberg film to date.

If the idea to save the planet is to adapt and eat our plastic waste, then that is definitely food for thought.